blue-nailed

Cf. Dante, Inferno. "As one, who hath an ague fit so near, / His nails already are turn'd blue, and he / Quivers all o'er, if he but eye the shade" (Canto XVII, 85-7) This is Dante's fear as he climbs the monster Geryon who will bring him and Virgil down into the eight circle of Hell, where those who have seduced any woman from her duty and flatterers dwell. Blue-nailed may also refer to mixed blood, i.e. dwindling aristocracy, and as Dante refers in the Italian to Malaria, so may these lines also refer to tuberculosis.

reference topics

Structural analysis
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